Bernard runs for 182 yards and No. 12 Utah wins Big 12 debut, beating No. 14 Oklahoma State 22-19

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Bernard runs for 182 yards and No. 12 Utah wins Big 12 debut, beating No. 14 Oklahoma State 22-19

2024-09-22 09:39 Last Updated At：09:40

STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) — Micah Bernard rushed for a career-high 182 yards, and No. 12 Utah withstood a fourth-quarter comeback to beat No. 14 Oklahoma State 22-19 on Saturday in the Utes' first Big 12 game after leaving the Pac-12.

Brant Kuithe scored two touchdowns and Cole Becker kicked three field goals for Utah (4-0, 1-0 Big 12).

Freshman Isaac Wilson passed for 207 yards and a touchdown and ran for 41 yards in place of injured Utes starter Cam Rising, who warmed up but didn’t play.

Oklahoma State's Alan Bowman, benched after an ineffective first half, returned midway through the fourth quarter and passed for two touchdowns and two 2-point conversions to help Oklahoma State (3-1, 0-1) trim Utah's lead to three points.

“Made that more dramatic than we needed to, but we handled it well and got the win,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. “Proud of our guys. Didn't always play as smart as we needed to. Had a chance to put the game away completely, let them back in it.”

Utah ran 81 plays to 59 for the Cowboys and had the ball for more than 42 minutes.

“The defense was on the field all day, which made it extremely difficult for them, honestly,” Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said. “I thought they played really well. You can only be out there so much. It made it really difficult.”

Bowman, who was 8 of 22 for 89 yards in the first half, finished with 206 yards and two interceptions. Sophomore Garret Rangel played the third quarter and part of the fourth before Bowman returned with 9:26 left and the Cowboys trailing 16-3.

“Offensively, we were awful,” Gundy said. “We couldn’t get any quarterback play, and then all of a sudden, late in the game we start playing better at quarterback. They won the game, but we certainly did a lot of things to help them.”

Utah held Oklahoma State's Ollie Gordon II to 42 yards rushing. Gordon won the Doak Walker Award for the nation's best running back last season.

Utah turned the ball over three times in the first half but still led 10-3. Cowboys safety Trey Rucker intercepted Wilson twice before the break.

The Utes' defense limited Oklahoma State to 119 yards and five first downs before the break, with Gordon gaining 16 yars on six carries.

The teams traded field goals before Utah forced a punt and drove 64 yards in 11 plays for the only touchdown of the first half. Kuithe scored on a direct snap from the 1-yard line.

Utah: The Utes played without starters Connor O'Toole and Karene Reid on defense, but they still took away Gordon and Bowman. Utah limited Oklahoma State to 285 yards and forced eight punts.

Oklahoma State: The Cowboys nearly completed the comeback, but couldn't stop Bernard late, and the Utes ran out the clock.

Wilson showed poise in his second start, completing 17 of 29 passes and extending several drives with his legs. He ran for a first down on fourth-and-5 from the Oklahoma State 21 in the second quarter, and later picked up 48 yards on third-and-11 in the third quarter.

“I liked that he just kept hanging in there,” Whittingham said. “Never got down on himself. Threw a couple of picks, didn't flinch. You saw his ability to run. He ripped off that 40 or 50-yard run — that was huge at that point in time. Dipped his shoulder and made another tough, tough run down in the red zone that got us a first down."

Gundy said he pulled Bowman because “sometimes you've got to get a guy out of there and calm him down a little bit.”

“Things move so fast that it's hard to get that part of it,” he said. “But I just felt like we weren't getting good play, and we needed a relief pitcher and got somebody else in there. And Garret had a tough day, so we switched back.”

Rangel, a sophomore, completed 3 of 11 passes for 31 yards.

Utah: Hosts Arizona on Saturday.

Oklahoma State: Visits Kansas State on Saturday.

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A New Zealand pilot is freed after 19 months in rebel captivity in Indonesia's Papua region

2024-09-22 09:17 Last Updated At：09:30

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A New Zealand pilot held hostage for more than a year in the restive Papua region of Indonesia was freed Saturday by separatist rebels.

Phillip Mark Mehrtens, a 38-year-old pilot from Christchurch, was working for Indonesian aviation company Susi Air when he was abducted by rebels from a remote airport on Feb. 7, 2023.

“Today I finally got out. I am so happy to be back home with my family soon,” Mehrtens told reporters in a news conference in the mining town of Timika. “Thank you to everyone who helped me get out safety and healthy.”

Television news earlier showed an emaciated, long-haired Mehrtens, wearing a dark-green shirt and black shorts, sitting in a room surrounded by police officers and local officials. He sobbed while talking to his family via video and an officer tried to calm him down by patting his back. He was later flown to Jakarta to be reunited with his family.

Rebels have used violence to try to achieve independence as the security situation deteriorates in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua, a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea that is ethnically and culturally distinct from much of Indonesia.

Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 under a United Nations-sponsored ballot that was widely seen as a sham. Since then, a low-level insurgency has simmered. The conflict spiked in the past year, with dozens of rebels, security forces and civilians killed.

Egianus Kogoya, a regional commander in the Free Papua Movement, initially said the rebels would not release Mehrtens unless Indonesia’s government allows Papua to become a sovereign country.

Then on Tuesday, leaders of the West Papua Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement known as TPNPB, issued a proposal for freeing Mehrtens that outlined terms including news media involvement in his release.

A taskforce spokesperson, Bayu Suseno, said that Mehrtens’ release was the result of hard work from a small task force team that had been communicating with the separatists led by Kogoya through the local church and community leaders as well as youth figures.

“This is incredibly good news,” said Suseno. “Effort to free the pilot by soft approach resulted in a hostage release without any casualties both from security forces, civilians or the pilot himself.”

Mehrtens’ family said in a statement on Sunday they were “extremely grateful" to the Indonesian government including the police and military for prioritizing "peaceful negotiations in order to keep Phil safe.”

“We are also grateful General Kogoya and his army for keeping Phil as safe and healthy as their means allowed, and for allowing Phil to get several messages out during this period to let us know that he was alive and okay,” the statement said. “Those messages filled our souls and gave us hope and that we would eventually see Phil again.”

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said that a wide range of government agencies had been working with Indonesian authorities and others to secure the release for the past 19 1/2 months. Officials were also supporting Mehrtens’ family, Peters said.

Many news outlets showed “cooperation and restraint” in reporting the story, he added. “The case has taken a toll on the Mehrtens family, who have asked for privacy,” Peters said.

New Zealand news outlets reported during Mehrtens’ captivity that he was one of a number of expatriate pilots employed by Susi Air and in recent years lived in Bali with his family.

Peters had not spoken to Mehrtens since his release. The news was “one of the better stories I’ve had” in his 45 years as a lawmaker, the three-time foreign minister added.

He declined to give details about how the pilot was freed. It was a “tricky” environment and building trust had been the most difficult aspect, Peters said.

“It was quite nerve-wracking, holding our nerve and not getting too carried away, not doing anything that might imperil the chances,” he said. “Because there was always a concern of ours that we might not succeed.”

Indonesia President Joko Widodo congratulated the military and police for prioritizing persuasion and safety.

“This was through a very long negotiation process and our patience not to do it repressively," Widodo said.

Mehrtens arrived in Jakarta’s Air Force base Halim Perdanakusumah just before midnight Saturday. He was escorted by police and military personnel as he descended the plane’s steps and was greeted by Indonesian officials and New Zealand diplomats on the tarmac.

The coordinating minister for politic, legal and security affairs Hadi Tjahjanto told a news conference after the arrival that the Indonesian government officially handed Mehrtens over to New Zealand’s Ambassador to Jakarta, Kevin Burnett, who will oversee his safety.

He emphasized that the separatist rebels had not demanded anything in return for Mehrtens’ release and hostage safety is a top priority.

In April 2023, armed separatists attacked Indonesian troops who were deployed to rescue Mehrtens, killing at least six soldiers.

In August, gunmen stormed a helicopter and killed its New Zealand pilot, Glen Malcolm Conning, after it landed in Alama, a remote village in the Mimika district of Central Papua province. No one has claimed responsibility for that attack, and the rebels and Indonesian authorities have blamed each other.

In 1996, the Free Papua Movement abducted 26 members of a World Wildlife Fund research mission in Mapenduma. Two kidnapped Indonesians were killed by their abductors. The remaining hostages were freed within five months.

Graham-McLay reported from Wellington, New Zealand.

This story corrects the spelling of the pilot's first name.